Facebook’s top public-policy executive in South Asia, Ankhi Das, shared a post on Facebook which called Muslims a “degenerate community.” Among other anti-Muslim comments shared in the post it also said that Muslims want “nothing except purity of religion and implementation of Shariah.”
If the name looks familiar, that may be because this is the same Facebook executive, Ankhi Das, who was exposed by the Wall Street Journal for refusing to apply Facebook’s own hate-speech policy on extreme right wing Hindu leaders who spread false news against Muslims.
Ankhi Das, who is Facebook’s Policy Director for India and South and Central Asia, has since apologised but despite two strikes, she is not out and has kept her well paid job at Facebook. “The intent of my personal Facebook post was not to denigrate Islam” she said.
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Das is known to be a BJP and Modi supporter having previously said “We lit a fire to his social media campaign and the rest is of course history” and claiming that Modi is the “George W. Bush of India.”
Did she also support the Gujarat Massacre of Muslims?
The 2002 Gujarat massacre of Muslims, while Prime Minister Modi was then Chief Minister of the province, saw thousands of Muslims lose their lives to Hindu extremists. Ankhi Das however commented in 2012 on the “Success in our Gujarat Campaign.”
A Muslim employee at Facebook India commented “we now need to do an honest reflection of hate speech and Islamophobia against Muslims on our platform.”
41 rights groups from around the world wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, demanding Ankhi Das be removed from her role at Facebook. The requests have fallen on deaf ears.
Signatories to the letter said that “mass riots in India spurred on by content posted on Facebook have been occurring for at least seven years.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook feared backlash from the Hindu Nationalist BJP ruling party if they were to ban posts by Hindu extremists. India is Facebook’s biggest market with over 300 million users of Facebook and 500 Million users of Whatsapp. 64% of Facebook’s ad revenue came from BJP and associated accounts.
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Instagram, also owned by Facebook, recently allowed a Facebook post from a verified account in India calling for violence against minorities. Facebook has been accused of perusing profit over human rights.
The Wall Street Journal reported “The company’s top public-policy executive in the country, Ankhi Das, opposed applying the hate-speech rules to [T Raja] Singh and at least three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence.”
Singh, the hate-preacher in question, has said that Muslim Rohingya refugees should all be shot dead and has said that all Muslims regardless of origin were traitors to India. In his fiery speeches he also threatened to demolish more mosques.
Recently 11 employees of Facebook in the USA wrote an open letter to Facebook leadership. The letter seen by Reuters demands that Facebook acknowledges and denounces anti-Muslim bigotry and ensures policy in India and elsewhere includes diverse representation”
The Washington Post’s Rana Ayyub said “A platform that was once meant to spread ideas and opinions has now become a tool that enables and encourages fascism”
Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook had become a “right-wing echo chamber”, which he denied saying “Well look, I think your characterisation, frankly, is just wrong. I don’t think that the service is a right-wing echo chamber, to use your words. I think that, you know, everyone can use their voice and can find media that they trust that reflects the opinions and the life experiences that they’re having”
Rohingya Genocide and Facebook
Facebook has been criticised for allowing Buddhist extremists in Myanmar to spread false news and hate speech against the Muslim Rohingya. It is thought complacency from Facebook could have lead to helped Buddhist extremist to carry out the genocide. Over one million Rohingya have fled Myanmar with tens of thousands brutally murdered.
I travelled to the border of Myanmar in 2017 to report on what was happening there. I heard the accounts of hundreds of people of how they were subject to crimes against humanity which would amount to Genocide. You can read my account here.
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